NAUTIC AFRICA
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NAUTIC AFRICA
Nautic to Provide
Better, Stronger, Tougher Ocean Solutions PRODUCTION: David Napier
Energy Focus talks to Nautic Africa CEO, Greg Wessels, about how this Cape Town-based shipyard is positioning itself at the peak of the African shipbuilding industry through constant innovation which earns it the reputation as the leader in its craft.
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In late September, a 35m sentinel patrol vessel, designed and built by Cape Town shipyard Nautic Africa, was working in Nigerian waters. The vessel’s captain noticed a small fast-approaching the vessel on radar, expecting pirates, he hastily made the move to top speed. Nigerian waters are regarded as some of the world’s most dangerous and Gulf of Guinea is seeing an increase in piracy, according to the International Maritime Bureau. In the first half of 2017 alone, there were 87 reported cases of piracy in the region according to the International Chambers of Commerce,
and many expect the real figure is much higher with many incidents going unreported. As the pirate vessel approached the patrol boat, heavily armed bandits instructed the Captain to slow or risk being fired upon. Confident in his vessel, he chose not to slow and the pirates stuck to their promise. “This wasn’t a couple of guys taking a couple of pots shots. This was a situation where the ship was under sustained attack for over an hour,” explains Nautic Africa CEO, Greg Wessels. “A fast skiff with outboards had crew with AK47s and a high-calibre
general-purpose machine gun. When the Captain didn’t stop, they targeted the bridge with a hail of bullets. Eventually, they began to retreat, perhaps due to a lack of ammunition or fuel, or possibly getting too close to other security vessels.” Importantly, the crew were unharmed and the patrol vessel escaped largely unscathed, proving the design and capability of Nautic Africa in a live and very real environment. “With all of these shots, there was no penetration,” says Wessels. “We took a lot of care during design of Nautic’s Patented SuperShield Ballistic Structure
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to ensure there was a lot of overlap of ballistic material so there were no weak spots. Clearly, that paid off as there was no penetration and the crew are very thankful. Our team met with the crew and we’ve now shipped replacement glass and ceramics to ensure the vessel is ready to re-engage in security operations.” Nautic Africa (a Paramount Group company) has grown to become one of the most trusted names in the African shipyard business. “We have an international customer that spot hires our vessels and they’ve been very happy with the vessels service delivery but now that this incident has happened and
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the vessel protection stood up to the test, their customers have seen the capability. It’s good brand building for Nautic Africa and it proves that our vessels stand up to the test. It also gives additional confidence to customers knowing that their staff and cargo will be safe no matter the situation,” says Wessels. The economic impact of piracy in Africa is large, hampering growth of the maritime industry and increasing the cost of shipping and offshore oil and gas production. This is why patrol vessels and modern ships are required, and where Nautic Africa has managed to carve a niche in the market.
HISTORY ON WATER Founded in 2008 by James Fisher, Nautic Africa started in Hout Bay before moving to the SA Naval Base in Simon’s Town. Just a small group grew into a staff compliment of more than 300 across three Cape Town harbour facilities. Today, the company is focussed on providing solutions for its clients. “We started from very humble beginnings, where the company was renting a small office in Hout Bay. We then moved into the Simonstown naval dockyard where we grew a small but dedicated team, many of whom are still with us today,” explains Wessels. “We forged ahead with our first vessel
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which turned out to be a huge success. While we were building that vessel, we secured another contract from the same client. Then there was a period where we didn’t know if we’d survive, but we really enjoyed creating vessels and put our passion into designing great products. We were relatively young in our careers and not too stressed about sales, so with our positive mind-set we forged ahead with our innovation in design and mantra of building relationSHIPS build to last, we developed our reputation and gained contracts for new vessels for new clients.” Nautic’s next move was not out of the traditional business growth playbook. The business decided to
move forward with a risky strategy of designing a vessel without a confirmed client. “We took the market knowledge we had and created something that we thought would fit the market, a 35m Sentinel. We gained a number of orders while the oil price was booming,” explains Wessels. “We then used our drive to constantly improve that product for the environment that it was operating in, and our customers really appreciated that approach. in 2012, Nautic Africa teamed up with Paramount Group, the African-based global defence company. This strategic partnership quickly went about securing more international and naval clients. “Locally, we’ve worked with Armscor and the SA Navy and we’re quite involved with future projects for the Navy, specifically with smaller vessels and electronics. There’s are a number of exciting opportunities that have transpired since Paramount’s involvement says Wessels. We started to win more sophisticated customers but as the oil price crashed we had to move fast, so we developed products for the ferry market and diversified our capabilities by investing in Veecraft and Southern Power. These businesses increased our product offering and value proposition by leveraging off vertical integration. By striving for continuous improvement and a result focused approach, Nautic was awarded ISO 9001 2008 accreditation in 2014 and was one of the first shipyards worldwide to be accredited the ISO 9001 2015 standard.
// NAUTIC’S NEW, MODERN VESSELS WILL BE A GAMECHANGER FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL CITY. // An engineer by training, Wessels has been with Nautic Africa since joining as a Project Manager in 2009. He still holds the first vessel
ever completed as a flagship for the business: “Our first vessel is one that I’m very proud of because it’s still in operation now and our customer is ecstatic with it. I’ve got a soft spot for that vessel because I was intimately involved in design as a Project Manager and organising subcontractors that we still use today,” he says. “It’s been such a successful vessel in Nigeria which is a particularly tough market. Secondly, there’s the first sentinel that we launched that was a real milestone for us as it was fully designed in SA, it was the first of its class in that space, and we’ve gone on to build 10 of those vessels.” Since inception, Nautic Africa has designed and developed vessels and technology that has gone on to set the standard in its international sector, and the 35m sentinel with SuperShield Ballistic protection is the perfect example. RECENT SUCCESSES Over the past 12-months, Nautic has realised significant success with a number of its different products. The company has delivered differing vessels to some big-name clients around Africa. Just last month, Nautic Africa delivered four new passenger transfer ferries to MSC Cruises, one of the global leaders in the cruise liner industry. Nautic’s 15m passenger ferries are capable of carrying 87 passengers and two crew. The vessels will be used to carry passengers from cruise ships to beach locations including Pomene and Portuguese Island in Mozambique. “MSC Cruises required a very specific design that’s economic to run and can carry a high volume of passengers safely,” explains Wessels. “MSC has two cruise liners in East Africa and they need to transfer passengers onshore from the main ship for various activities and back again – it’s essentially a water borne bus service. Four of our ferries take 87 passengers each from a boarding platform on the main ship to the beach. We worked
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closely with MSC to develop this product. It was essential to understand the environment and operational requirements in order to deliver a successful solution. Our Nautic Marine Services team have further supported MSC operations with local skipper training and maintenance support. “It has been an exciting project for us, our staff and suppliers are MSC Cruise customers and many of them have been on the Mozambique cruise holiday. Our people are proud when out there enjoying their vacation cruising to the beach on a product they have been part of creating. MSC have ordered ten vessels to date the final two are in production which will provide increase transfer capacity for the 2018 cruise season. The first four vessels, built three years ago, returned to the yard for refits and we’ve upgraded them significantly because continuous improvement is one of our core values.” Wessels hopes that partnering with global names like MSC will enable Nautic to grow internationally,
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alongside its clients, into new geographic markets. “We hope MSC’s operations in East Africa go from strength to strength” he says “and they are expanding into new regions such as the Caribbean so if they decide to roll out this concept in other regions it would be fantastic to continue to supply vessels. It’s important for us, with all our customers, to build relationships that last on a personal and commercial level.” Earlier this year, Nautic was successful in supplying ferries to the Ivory Coast. In a R347 million deal with CITRANS, Nautic needed to deliver firstclass 27m composite catamaran ferries with large passenger capacity and robust Volvo Penta power solutions. The first of these ferries, bound for action in Abidjan, was launched in Cape Town in December 2016 with much fanfare. Wessels is particularly excited about opportunities in Abidjan, a growing capital city. “They are still building terminals due for completion by the end of the
year/early New Year so it’s a very active and exciting project. The old ferries are antiquated, slow and inefficient. Nautic’s new, modern equipment will be a game-changer for this beautiful city. This project is about social upliftment and that’s motivation for our team. “We delivered six vessels earlier this year and they’re all in operation now. There are four more in production for delivery in the New Year. We’ve been working closely with the operator and we have our own team on the ground in Abidjan. Local content and knowledge transfer in Africa is vital and so we aim to support development of those local operations as much as we can in a collaborative way,” he says. IMMEDIATE FOCUS Right now, in Cape Town, Nautic Africa and its partners continue to move forward with the building of some of the most innovative ideas and exciting vessels, continuously striving to provide solutions to our client’s challenges.
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“We have two 35m patrol vessels on the water now, fully commissioned, and we will deliver before the close of the year,” says Wessels of the company’s current focus. “. We are working on new projects with our sentinel range, that we’re very passionate about. We are developing new products with our in-house R&D department, using our proven Sentinel range we have implemented Hybrid propulsion systems. This will provide significant operational savings for our customers in furl and maintenance. With ease of product operation and efficient cost management Nautic has developed IntelliShip, an innovation in terms of remote monitoring of equipment for maintenance purposes through IT, on board Wi-Fi, satellite link and 3G networks when close to port, this will all be part of our new 38m defender range.” The focus for Nautic will be an African one, ensuring that value and quality are top of the agenda resulting in long-lasting relationships with customers. “We’re taking all the lessons we’ve learnt and all of the interactions we have with our customers on a daily
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GREG WESSELS - CEO basis and implementing them into the next generation of vessel which is fit for purpose in the African context. We want owners to feel they are getting the most cost-effective product that will provide an exceptional ROI,” Wessels adds. SINKING ECONOMY? An industry that requires significant capital investment for product development and expansion strategies, ship building, and many shipyards, are dependent on a buoyant economy to create a preferable trading environment. But in South Africa, economic stability has, in recent years, become more of a dream than a reality. International credit agency downgrades, constant currency price fluctuations, high unemployment, low GDP growth, and an uncertain political landscape can make future planning challenging. Combine this with the commodity price instability in African markets in 2014/15 and things become increasingly difficult. “It’s been tough,” admits Wessels. “Customers struggle to raise cash when the oil price is depressed. The amount of deals closing now and how
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competitive the pricing is, is vastly different to what it was two years ago. The market is more buoyant now with the strengthening of the oil price but it’s a tough environment. We don’t feel too much of an impact from weakness in the local economy as not much of our business comes directly through South Africa but we do see a lot of our subcontractors struggling. The volatile Rand is challenging and a lot of other countries don’t have to deal with that – unfortunately that’s a risk we have to mitigate and discuss regularly.” But, with a strong project pipeline and superior intellectual property, Nautic Africa has a competitive edge that it builds on. The company and everyone involved is instilled with a positive mind-set and optimistic culture, and this comes right from the top. “One of our real strengths as a team is the ability to maintain our optimism when things aren’t going swimmingly. You have to be positive around the opportunities you are active with – it’s a project based business and one project can make all the difference. We know there’s opportunity out there and we stay focussed on that,” enthuses Wessels. He is confident that South Africa and South African businesses have much to offer. “The banks are keen to do deals,” he says. “Our Export Credit Insurance Corporation (ECIC) is very hungry to back SA export deals, so we are able to put great term sheets together for our customers; the desire is there, the opportunity is there but the financing is the constraint for many of these deals and we are able to facilitate the required financing solutions.” A specific focus has been developed by the SA government – the Operation Phakisa Oceans Economy Initiative – aimed at growing and maximising potential from the country’s marine, maritime, offshore energy, fishing, tourism and related industries. The hope is that this will stimulate
maritime activity and Nautic will be perfectly positioned to assist. “There’s a big drive for it and the government is backing it. We want to drive innovation in the maritime space and we have a world class facility we’ve just put up and moved into this year. We are talking to potential partners to take up part of the surplus office space, our vision is to build a Cape Town maritime innovation hub - and that’s gaining momentum,” details Wessels.
// WE’RE TAKING ALL THE LESSONS WE’VE LEARNT AND ALL OF THE INTERACTIONS WE HAVE WITH OUR CUSTOMERS ON A DAILY BASIS AND IMPLEMENTING THEM INTO THE NEXT GENERATION OF VESSEL // SAILING FORWARD Looking to the future, Greg Wessels is confident. Now approaching its 10-year anniversary, Nautic Africa has developed expertise across such a wide spread of products and services, it is undoubtedly recognised as an industry leader. “We’re very broad with our focus. We’re doing composite work in the ferry space, we’re doing aluminium work in the patrol space, we’re doing steelwork in the workboat space. We have had to be quite diverse because there are so few shipyards around Africa. For me, becoming an internationally well-recognised aluminium shipyard with innovative design capability is at the heart of what we’re doing,” he says. “We have some of the best welders, product leading designs and we’re just
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// BECOMING AN INTERNATIONALLY WELL-RECOGNISED ALUMINIUM SHIPYARD WITH INNOVATIVE DESIGN CAPABILITY IS AT THE HEART OF WHAT WE’RE DOING // good at it. There’s a lot of excess steel capacity all over the world and in that space, we’re well-positioned so we will continue partnering with large steel yards to deliver larger, more complex vessels.” Currently, the mission for Nautic
Africa is to ‘actively partner with customers by providing quality, customised and innovative maritime solutions’, but when questioned on whether this has already been achieved, Wessels says: “Instilled in the Nautic Leadership Principles of Trust, Empowerment, Extreme Ownership, Engagement, Innovation, Winning and Fun. Our people nurture trust by empowering their teams to achieve success through extreme ownership, by being engaged and actively seeking to build stronger relationships. Results matter, process and product innovation are part of our DNA, by doing so we stretch our limits to deliver superior results. We acknowledge these successes and celebrate them as a family. “Vision-wise, we want to build a
sustainable business that positively touches the lives of our people by moving to the next tier of complexity on vessels. A large portion of our work has come from the 25-35m vessel space and the natural progression is to move into the installation of more sophisticated electronic and mission systems and building larger vessels which continue to exceed our customers’ expectations,” he concludes.
NAUTIC AFRICA +27 21 200 0601 info@nauticafrica.com www.nauticafrica.com
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December 2017
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Journey of a
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